What is this “Bubble” idea?

Programming without code is “something that has to happen” because coding is so tedious, Straschnov said. Building software has been done without code for the past 30 years. That hasn’t happened with code yet, “so we are trying to be that tool to define that new standard.”

How do you code without code?

Straschnov told us that it is not exactly coding, but instead, programming. “That is an important distinction. Programming and coding are two different things. You design all those things that you need to, and then the programming happens, instead of writing code you build something called ‘workflows,’ which is to say ‘when the user clicks here do this and do that.’” The trick is that although there is code somewhere, Bubble wrote it, not the user. Bubble does all that hard coding work for you. Bubble is the only tool on the market that can build sites as advanced as Twitter and Facebook in terms of functionality. Until now, you would have to hire engineers to do so.

Your resume is astounding, when do you sleep?

“Well I am not as young as I look,” Straschnov joked. He went on to purport that it actually took him a few years to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. “I actually started pretty late, he said “I was 29 when I came up with the idea for Bubble.”

You lived in Paris, so why move to New York?

“The reason was business school,” said Straschnov. After France, Straschnov moved to China for three years working and consulting there. And he was not ready to go home, although he did want to leave China. He applied to Harvard and got into business school for his MBA. Then he met his business partner through mutual friends as part of the Harvard network. His business partner already had the idea and was looking for a co-founder, and they partnered after their first coffee together.

With 200,000 users, you are growing pretty fast aren’t you?

“We have doubled in revenue every year, right now,” Straschnov said. “We hope that we will grow a little faster. We define a new standard of programming and building software and so the sky’s the limit. So while we are growing fast, we are still pretty far from our goal.” Growth has been good, Straschnov said. Bubble has 220,000 users, which is starting to be a real community. People are helping each other and answering each other’s questions. The average response time when you post a question on the platform is 10 minutes.

Where is Bubble headed in the next five years?

Straschnov and his co-founder want Bubble to become the next programming standard. They want to do it through entrepreneurs, individual start-ups and small business instead of going too soon into large corporations. “I really think if a revolution happens, it will happen through the people. In college for instance, if people start using Bubble actively, they will get us naturally everywhere where they go. So, in five years what I am hoping, and I think we will be, is the standard for individual small businesses and start-ups to build things, and we will start making a dent in the enterprise world.”

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